Comet ISON, extrasolar visitors and a new dinosaur dwarfs the T-Rex: The Week in Science

In this photo provided by NASA, Comet ISON shows off its tail in this three-minute exposure taken on Nov. 19, 2013 at 6:10 a.m. EST, using a 14-inch telescope located at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
AP Photo/NASA, Aaron Kingery

Comet ISON is hopefully preparing for a spectacular show, Antarctica detects some visitors from outside the solar system, Neanderthals passed down an ancient virus through our DNA, a new dinosaur species makes the T-rex look like a small child and more, this week in science.

The sun may destroy Comet ISON

Comet ISON will reach perihelion, the closest point to the sun in its orbit, on Thanksgiving and it may not survive the encounter. If it does, we could be in for a spectacular view of the celestial object, as its close-encounter could cause the comet to break up a bit and elongate its tail, the signature beauty of all comets. Should it survive, those of us in the northern hemisphere should be able to see the comet in the east-southeast sky just before dawn throughout the first half of December. Both NASA and Slate have several excellent photos taken from observatories and by astrophotographers.

Out-of-this-world visitors show up in Antarctica

No, not aliens. The IceCube detector array in Antarctica has detected a total of 28 neutrinos, tiny high-energy particles travelling at the speed of light. Neutrinos are so small that billions of them pass through everything everyday without any hint of interaction. The IceCube array is made up of a series of photodetectors buried deep, 2 kilometers deep, in the antarctic ice. It detected the neutrinos using cherenkov radiation, picking up the incredibly small, brief flashes of light that occur when a neutrino comes into contact with the atoms that make up the ice. Based on the energy readings, the researchers have determined that the source of the neutrinos is outside of our solar system. You can read the study on Arxiv (pdf).

Neanderthal virus still present in our DNA

A new study published in the journal Current Biology compared DNA from our ancient, evolutionary cousins the Neanderthal and Denisovan with DNA collected from cancer patients. They found evidence of viruses that had infected the Neanderthal and Denisovan man present in the DNA of modern humans. Since the Neanderthal and Denisovan sub-species existed in tandem with modern homo sapiens, this points to the virus originating in our shared 400,000 year old, or older, ancestors.

Native Americans traced to Siberian boy

Another study, this time published in Nature, analyzed the DNA from a 24,000 year old Siberian boy and found two surprises. The first, especially when paired with the statue found at the grave site, suggests a migration from western Europe much further east than previously thought. Parts of the boys genome matched what is currently found in western Europeans. The second discovery, was that the boy shared a portion of his genome with Native Americans, suggesting further that a camp of peoples in the Siberian region made the cross over into North America during the last ice age. Further, the Siberian boy did not contain any DNA common to East Asian populations at the time, which Native Americans share a significant ancestry. So the meetup between this Siberian population, and the East Asian population, becoming what is now the Native American population, occurred after the boys death.

New Dino dwarfs mighty T-Rex

A new species of dinosaur was discovered in southeastern Utah, and researchers are saying the Siats dinosaur, named after a cannibalistic monster of Ute legend, would have dwarfed the monstrous Tyrannosaurus Rex. The specimen they found, though only a juvenile, is estimated to be 9 meters (30 ft.) long, where an adult t-rex would measure up to about 12 meters (40 ft). In a statement to Western Digs, Dr. Lindsay Zanno, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University who co-discovered the new species said “contemporary tyrannosaurs would have been no more than a nuisance to Siats, like jackals at a lion kill.” Crucially, the discovery of Siats fills a gap between the Acrocanthosaurus, which ruled North America 120 million years ago, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which ruled about 68 million years ago. The Siatz fossil is dated at about 100 million years ago.

The Week in Science takes a look at new discoveries, new technologies and new breakthroughs from every discipline. There are many each week that I can’t include and more still that I didn’t even see. Did you read about something cool that is science related? Send me a link at daniel.aitken@langnews.com and maybe it will make it on next weeks list.